Lack of financial nous amongst young people

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

It seems in recent years what used to be evening classes became adult education and then pretty much just basket weaving and flower arranging during daytime hours.

Courses mostly broke down into: learn a language for your holiday, do some basic cookery/make friends, keep fit. No real, actual meaty subjects. Nothing worthwhile.

Those that did offer a bit more simply couldn't be reached after work because of the time/distance, so 30 miles away from home and starting at 6.30pm isn't much good if you're finishing work at 6pm and it's a 40 minute drive to even reach the campus car park.

And the fees went up considerably too. £200 for an evening course is a bit steep, especially if you're living alone on a not-too-great salary and having to drive 30 miles each way to get to it. Also, fees are based on your situation the minute you sign up, so you can sign up one day but be laid off the next week - I would prefer to keep my £200 in my pocket in case that happened (because it would).

I did once try to find an A level Maths course, but there simply wasn't one in the whole county. In fact these are in very short supply in many places it seems... unless you have your days free.

We used to have a good range of qualification based subjects (meaning GCSE and A Levels etc) in our local schools as night school (starting at 7pm), which was incredibly handy for those working full time...it was how I got my GCSE and was halfway through my A level.

Then bit by bit, the courses started disappearing to be replaced by the basket weaving etc and the only way you could do it, would be to go to the next big town, in rush hour, at a time not really handy when you was working full time and having to contend with rush hour traffic 15 miles away.

Yes, they could do the A level in one year, instead of the two I had originally signed up for but I would have had to start at the beginning again (that wasn't too bad) but the main problem was getting there for a 6pm start time..that would have meant leaving here by about 5.15 at the latest to actually get into that town and find a parking space...pretty impossible when you don't finish work until 5.30 at the earliest.

Now, I don't think you can even just do the one qualification like you could back then, think you need to go on some sort of programme of several A levels and GCSE courses are difficult to find.

NUFC_Rob

surely parents have the lions share of responsibility for ensuring their children are financially savvy?

lostinrates

NUFC_Rob wrote: »

surely parents have the lions share of responsibility for ensuring their children are financially savvy?

Of course, and financilly savvy parents are going to teach their children.

My parents are not financially savvy. They save, some. They've been vctims of pension problems (not that those were unsavvy decisions exactly: anyone can be the victim of bad people) and they have the odd premium bond, and stupid endowmnt policies. They don't even have ISAs Like most normal people they try and do as bendix said: earn more than they spend But thats the limit of their knowledge really. My husband had no finncial education from his parents (who probably didn't have much them selves, they were of the spend less than earn too, but it was easier on their salaries!).

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

A ceiling to floor glass wall in the chicken house? With light-activated shuttering? You know you're posh don't you.

I was thinking more a bit of a window with a cheap plastic gold Budda with rays of sun made out of cardboard painted red and yellow and a light bulb, maybe with a big singing bowl to fill with doughnuts and grapes. Its not posh so much as a little bit derranged

mewbie_2

LIR hen 1: Is that Buddha over there?
LIR hen 2: I reckon it is.
LIR hen 3: Just checked it out - OMG it's cardboard!!
LIR hen 1: <sadly> I can't believe it not's Buddha.

Oldernotwiser

SingleSue wrote: »

We used to have a good range of qualification based subjects (meaning GCSE and A Levels etc) in our local schools as night school (starting at 7pm), which was incredibly handy for those working full time...it was how I got my GCSE and was halfway through my A level.

Then bit by bit, the courses started disappearing to be replaced by the basket weaving etc and the only way you could do it, would be to go to the next big town, in rush hour, at a time not really handy when you was working full time and having to contend with rush hour traffic 15 miles away.

Yes, they could do the A level in one year, instead of the two I had originally signed up for but I would have had to start at the beginning again (that wasn't too bad) but the main problem was getting there for a 6pm start time..that would have meant leaving here by about 5.15 at the latest to actually get into that town and find a parking space...pretty impossible when you don't finish work until 5.30 at the earliest.

Now, I don't think you can even just do the one qualification like you could back then, think you need to go on some sort of programme of several A levels and GCSE courses are difficult to find.

Colleges often stopped offering A levels to adults at evening classes because they aren't the most suitable qualification for university entry, which is what most adults want them for.

It's much better to offer broad based Access courses in areas like Humanities or Social Sciences for all the mature students who want to be nurses/social workers/teachers than it is to offer a small range of A levels. You just can't run classes with half a dozen students in them these days, it's not economic and it isn't allowed.

SingleSue

I understand that may be the case now but this was in the early 90's...and not one in my class of 20 students wanted to get the A level to go to university (we were all working full time in very good jobs), we just wanted progression from our GCSE (we had different goals back then, I was bored even with working and wanted to stretch my brain a little, plus wanted to have one of those new fangled GCSE's to go with my O levels)

It was just annoying that they cancelled our course halfway through, a whole year down the pan with nothing to show for it apart from loads of books and an even bigger deficit in the bank balance.

I've just missed out the A level bit completely now and gone straight to Open University for a degree as the option to build up the A levels had gone (I don't want to be a nurse, teacher or social worker)......and not doing too bad at it either!

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

I was thinking more a bit of a window with a cheap plastic gold Budda with rays of sun made out of cardboard painted red and yellow and a light bulb, maybe with a big singing bowl to fill with doughnuts and grapes. Its not posh so much as a little bit derranged

Build 2, I'll rent the other one off you.... it was the bowl filled with doughnuts that won me over.

Gorgeous_George

There are many reasons why kids have no financial commonsense.

One is the introduction of league tables for schools. Instead of preparing our children for adult life, they concentrate entirely on exam results. Some (children) leave school with 17 passes at the top level. When I was at school there weren't that many subjects (perhaps history has been split into two now that there is more of it?).

They can work out the square root of a banana but not how to peel it.

GG

PasturesNew

SingleSue wrote: »

I've just missed out the A level bit completely now and gone straight to Open University for a degree as the option to build up the A levels had gone (I don't want to be a nurse, teacher or social worker)......and not doing too bad at it either!

I did a bunch of OU stuff, but this was back in the dark days when the internet was an i386 with 2MB of RAM on dial up - and you had to video TV programmes.

I stopped doing them because I moved into a temporary bedsit with no phone line and I had no video - and as it was computing I was doing there was a PC, printer, books, etc to lug about. After that, life was too changeable to really start again - and then there was the cost, I couldn't afford it. As I was in/out of work I could never say definitively how much I was earning - and although there was the potential for reduced fees it seemed a bit vague .... and only took into account earnings, not commitments and I was already in over my head with a big mortgage. I've got about 160 CAT points I think.... if/when I am ever settled I'd look again, but uncertainty/change and moving about doesn't make it easy (my speshulness exacerbated these problems, I just didn't know it then - I have to be able to plan things and being unable to plan or know leads to complete inaction).